The number of senior citizens, those aged over 65, has risen more than 55% over the past five years.

According to a report from Nielsen, the number of senior citizens on the Internet has grown from 11.3 million in 2004 to 17.5 million in 2009.  And they aren’t just hopping on for a second, they are spending an average of 58 hours a month online.

So, what are they doing with their time? Here are the top 10 ways they spend their time:

1. Checking Personal E-mail
2. Viewed or Printed Maps Online
3. Checked Weather Online
4. Paid/Viewed Bills Online
5. View/Posted Photos Online
6. Read General/Political News
7. Checked Personal Health Care Info
8. Planned Leisure Travel Trip Online
9. Searched Recipes/Meal Planning Suggestions
10. Read Business/Finance News

In other words, they appear to be all about using the Web as a utility.  Whether it be communicating or keeping current, they seem to be finding ways to bring more of the world into their home, saving them the time and trouble of going out.  While it is always wise for seniors to stay physically active, at least this allows them to spend their time out of the home on more leisurely pursuits than running all those sorts of little errands that do nothing more than annoy a person.

It also looks like they are looking ways to cut expenses.  Who needs to mail payments any more when you can pay your bills online and know instantly that your payment has been received?

What is also intriguing is the way they are engaging the Web when they aren’t doing the more practical activities:

1. Google Search
2. Windows Media Player
3. Facebook
4. YouTube
5. Amazon
6. Yahoo! Mail
7. Yahoo! Search
8. Yahoo! Homepage
9. Bing Web
10. Google Maps

Yes, there is a whole lot of searching going on there, but social network Facebook rose from 45th position last year to 3rd position this year.  With YouTube in 4th place, they are looking for entertainment, and Amazon in 5th means they are shopping or researching possible purchases.

Apparently they really like Yahoo! Mail for all that email they are doing.

StarterTech was started with the idea of making the Web simpler for people such as senior citizens, and apparently we were correct about them wanting to use it!

Amazon may very well be presenting us with the future of entertainment media with its new “Buy Now, Watch Now” promotion.

Many experts are saying that the age of physical media is quickly coming to an end and that downloaded/streaming media will be the next big thing.  What if you could have the best of both worlds at the same time?

The Amazon “Buy Now, Watch Now” promotion is a program that included approximately 300 different titles on DVD that will allow you to download a digital version of the film to your PC or TiVo for instant viewing.  This allows you to have instant gratification, or if you are buying a DVD as a gift, hey, you get a copy of the movie also.

Before one of you smart people goes, “Well, I’ll just return the DVD and keep the digital copy for free!” Uh-uh.  Amazon anticipated that and you will be charged for a Video on Demand movie, but refunded for the DVD or Blu-ray copy.

This is apparently a limited time test, and the selection of movies is small, but you can just about guarantee that this is a test for something else down the road.  How big this might get, who knows, but it could be a heck of a way to help the lagging DVD sales the entertainment industry has been seeing as of late.

Seeing as the movies don’t cost anything extra, what’s the harm in giving it a try?

Norton has launched version 2.0 of its online backup tool.

We’ve talked before about how everyone should backup their data, and even what happens when you haven’t backed up yet, so we always take great interest when a new product launches, or an existing one receives an update.  Last week we got to sit down with Norton for a one-on-one walkthru of their new Online Backup 2.0 tool upgrade, and we have to say it definitely answers some issues that every modern family faces.

Some of the key upgrades in this new version include:

• Cross-platform functionality for Windows and Mac computers  supports Microsoft XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Mac OS X (including Mac OS X 10.6, “Snow Leopard”)
• Users can email any backed-up file via download links sent through the redesigned Web dashboard
• 90-day file versioning saves previous versions of backed-up files for up to 90-days, so older versions can be easily retrieved
• Advanced search allows  users to search for backed-up files by name, date, size and/or type of file
• Open file backup stores the most current file, even if it’s open (especially important for email files)
• File purge and storage management makes it easy for users to remove previously backed-up files in order to clear up available storage space
• Additional new features include improvements to file migration, the automatic initial setup, user settings and a more intuitive redesign of the user interface

However, I will say those were the key points that Norton felt should be pointed out, the two that I was in love with was that you can use one license on up to five computers and you can also back up any mapped attached external hard drive or networked drive.

The average family now has 2.4 computers in the home, so the day of “one license per computer” is going to have to come to an end at some point.  Who can afford to buy a copy of every piece of software for every computer they own?  It just isn’t feasible.  With Norton Online Backup 2.0 you can use it on your Windows and Mac systems in your home, so if you have a desktop, a laptop, your spouses laptop and so on, you’re good to go.

The external drive option is one I have been dying for as I use USB attached drives extensively, but every backup option I’ve worked with has limited you to the main drive built into your computer, and that’s it.  This is a great boon to laptop users especially who tend to use external drives more and more.

The initial subscription is $49.99 per year for 25GB of storage (shared between all the computers on your account), with additional storage available for a fee.  Seems like the perfect Christmas gift for a family with a lot of computers to me.

Internet favorite music service Pandora is exploring the possibility of being built into cars.

If you aren’t familiar with Pandora yet, you need to be.  It is a free streaming music service that allows you to create “stations” by telling it a song or singer/group you like, and then it plays a song to see if it has the correct song for you.  Once you have confirmed the song, it will begin streaming similar compositions it thinks you will like in a similar vein.  It is a great way of discovering music you’ve never heard of and keeping you entertained for hours on end.

Pandora has long been a favorite around the StarterTech offices, and while I personally use the BlackBerry application to listen on the go, playing it in the car hasn’t always been an easy proposition due to hooking it into my stereo via a cassette tape adapter.  Well, things may be on their way to getting considerably easier to listen to your favorite stations in the car.

According to GigaOm, Tom Conrad, chief technology officer of Pandora, was speaking at a panel at the SF Music Tech Summit and brought up that the company is exploring the possibilities of forging deals with auto makers to integrate the service into dashboard displays.  The service is already available in some models of Ford cars, but now it is looking to expand beyond that.

There was some mention of the cost of the service either being included in the car’s sticker price, or possibly bundled with other services.  While we said above that the service is free, Pandora has been exploring subscriptions for accounts that use the service for more than 40 hours a month, and if this was included in your car, you could easily exceed that amount depending on the length of your commute.

No timeline was mentioned as to when this may start appearing, but some hints were dropped that there may be some form of announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show next month in Las Vegas.

Are you tired of losing electrical outlets to charging your USB devices? What if there was a wall outlet that would just let you plug in the USB cable directly? Well, there soon will be!

There have been people that have come up with ways for you to wise USB ports into a wall outlet, but it looks like someone has finally just decided to manufacture them.

Available from FastMac for delivery in early 2010, pending approval on its safety, the TruePower UCS Power Outlet With Built-in USB Ports will offer you two standard three-pronged outlets along with two USB ports.  These will pop into any existing wall outlet you have with no special wiring required, and you will then be able to charge your iPod by just using the USB cable, and free up another electrical outlet for something else.

The outlets are a bit on the expensive side at $9.95, but how much would it cost you to buy a power strip or hire an electrician to come in and run a whole new outlet?

Here are the technical specifications on the outlet:

Specifications:
Input voltage: AC 100 to 240V 50/60Hz
USB input current: 80mA
Output voltage: USB: DC 5.0V 600mA
Operation temperature: -15 to 45 Degrees Celsius
Relative humidity: < 95%
Air pressure: 86 to 106kPa

The one place I would love to see these take off, but I know it will never happen? Hotels. Imagine no longer having to travel with chargers, just USB cables. Oh the joy that would bring to me.

Indicators are pointing to the final piece of the Google chrome puzzle coming next week: Extensions.

Many people have said that the only reason that they haven’t changed to Chrome as their main Web browser is because it lacks support for extensions, those little tools that allow your browser to do extra little jobs.  extensions have long been a major component of the Firefox community, and so people have been missing them during their use of Chrome.

According to TechCrunch, Google will be announcing its Extension support some time this week, and it makes perfect sense as Google is a Gold sponsor of Add-on-Con 09, a developer conference dedicated to extensions.

The only problem with extensions is the more you add to a program, the slower it will go as it is just that much more code for it to deal with.  To date, one of the biggest selling points of Chrome has been its speed, if it starts losing that advantage in lieu of extensions, it may be a Catch-22 for Google.  If people start overloading their copy of Chrome with extensions and it slows to a crawl, something they have done to themselves, they will confuse it with the fault of Google.

In short, enjoy the extensions (if they do in deed come out this week), but be careful with how many you add.

Reports indicate that Apple has purchased streaming music service Lala.

Apple isn’t usually known for purchasing other companies, preferring to build everything for itself, but news has come out in the past 24 hours that it has purchased Lala.  The company does sometimes buy smaller companies, most of which go unnoticed, but the possible implications of this purchase are staggering.

If you haven’t heard of Lala before, it is a streaming music service that some people have referred to as the iTunes of the Web.  It started off as a service where you could trade CDs with other users via the mail, and you could also “backup” up to 5,000 songs from your personal collection to its servers and then listen to the music from any computer with Internet access.

Late last year they added streaming capabilities that allowed you to stream any of the 8 million songs it had acquired a license to for one time, and then if you wanted to hear it again you could pay a minimal fee for unlimited streaming.

The news broke earlier today that the two companies were supposedly in talks, but by this evening it was being reported by The New York Times that the deal was actually completed.  Steve Dowling, an Apple spokesman, told the newspaper that the company “buys smaller technology companies all the time, and we generally do not comment on our purpose or plans.”

And that is where the excitement is coming from; what exactly are Apple’s plans for a streaming music company?

The reports say that Lala executives actually contacted Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president in charge of iTunes, about the possible purchase over concerns that the small company was not going to be able to turn a profit in the short term.  Unconfirmed reports — which, really, all of this information is at this point — say that Apple got the company at a bargain basement price of $.50 on the dollar.

Now begins the speculation of what Apple with do with Lala’s technology.  Many people have said for some time now that Apple should get into some sort of cloud computing based version of iTunes that would allow a user to play their music across all of their computers and mobile devices without needing to sync data constantly.  Will they strip Lala down to its assets and do such a thing?  Who knows, it is anyone’s guess at this point, but it would make sense.

Hopefully there will be some sort of official announcement soon, but this is Apple we are talking about here, a company famous for its secrecy.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines for bloggers took effect this week, but yet we still don’t have answers as to how we’re supposed to disclose any thing.

Enter the twisted humor of bloggers.

As we reported on the 1st, the new FTC guidelines still aren’t completely clear, but yet we are supposed to disclose any relationship we have to a company we write about.  Luckily bloggers are known to be a snarky lot, so some of them have started coming up with their own disclosure rules, and as one should expect, they aren’t exactly kind to the FTC.

Louis Gray got the ball rolling with his set of 8 badges bloggers can display on their posts.  While they’re humorous, they actually do fulfill the requirements to the best of anyone’s understanding them since the FTC seems to have no interest in clearing up things for anyone.

Secondly I added another batch of badges which are pretty specific, but boy did they have me laughing.  Enjoy, and make sure to save the ones you want.

Feeling Guilty from Cover to Cover? (500 px | 250 px | 150 px)	Are Your Stomach and Conscience Both Full? (500 px | 250 px | 150 px)	Did You Make Out Like a Bandit? (500 px | 250 px | 150 px)
Are You On the Take? (500 px | 250 px | 150 px)	Sporting Some New Geek Cred? (500 px | 250 px | 150 px)	Watching the Market A Bit More? (500 px | 250 px | 150 px)
Are You Shacking Up With a Source? (500 px | 250 px | 150 px)	Did You Do Time for A Crime? (500 px | 250 px | 150 px)

SiliconANGLE’s Contribution to the Meme

My good friend Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins, with whom I work with over at SiliconANGLE, came up with a few more that are pretty darn specific, but still darn amusing.

Journalistic Integrity Most sponsored tweets for people who have less than 10,000 followers are under $5.00. Is it going to affect my judgment? No. Will it buy a happy meal for the kid? Yes.
Half-assed Endorsement There are about ten companies who pay me residual affiliate checks of less than $30 a month because I recommended them once years ago. Again, this doesn’t affect my judgment on the company, but it does help pay the cable bill.
Social Media Expert Guru Evangelist Whatever In general, bloggers make a lot of money being hired as advisors or consultants for companies that are in industries they know stuff about. This does not equal hanky panky.
The Robert Scoble Disclosure Sorry Robert, but under the new FTC regs, every time you cry you’ll hafta display this badge.

I hate being right some days, but this isn’t one of them. I’m loving being right this time.

The other day I wrote up a post here about Windows Systems Suffering Black Screens After Security Update, and I stated:

What seems odd about this whole report is that the supposed guilty security update was sent out Nov. 10th, but the first reports came in last week from a security firm named Prevx.  Prevx says they have a tool that will fix some instances for users, and at this point Microsoft is simply stating that they are investigating the situation and have no official word on it.

The reason I find this whole thing a bit questionable is how as someone plugged in to the technology world such as I am heard no complaints prior to a third-party company I’ve never heard of suddenly saying they know how to fix it.  True its solution is being provided for free, but the amount of publicity more than makes up for it.  I have heard no independent verifications of something being wrong with the update, and believe me, something like this happens, you’d hear all about it on Twitter.

There is every chance this problem is real, but it does seem a tad odd at the moment.

Well, according to Ed Bott at ZDNet, I was right to say it smelled fishy because it was.

… on Tuesday evening, Prevx backs down completely from the story, publishing a formal retraction and apologizing to Microsoft. Another follow-up post the next day from Prevx CEO and CTO Mel Morris tries to deny any responsibility for the damage. He includes this hilarious bit of understatement: “Regrettably, it is clear that our original blog post has been taken out of context and may have caused an inconvenience for Microsoft.”

What a shock.

What was disturbing about this whole thing (and according to Steven Hodson at Shooting at Bubbles, I deserve the right to pat myself on the back for this one), I was one of the very few tech journalists who called it suspicious.  As Mr. Bott chronicles the whole debacle in his post, he points out time and time again how all of the major tech blogs went nuts reporting it, but yet no one seemed to question it or research it.

While I did look around unofficially online, I admit I did not contact Microsoft.  Why?  Because I fully admit I knew I would get an empty answer with no substance to it, and lets face it, StarterTech isn’t exactly a leading tech blog like the big boys.  If they weren’t getting quotes, neither was I.

What I did do was to use this amazing resource called “the Internet”, perhaps you’ve heard of it?  We are sitting on top of the most powerful research tool ever invented and apparently most bloggers couldn’t be bothered to head to a search engine and do some basic research.  Where were the cries of outrage from users?  Why wasn’t this a trending topic on Twitter?  Where were the Apple Fanboys crowing over their superiority?  Instead what I found was tech blogs writing the same headlines over and over with nary a question in sight as to why we were the only ones talking about it.  Would it have really been that difficult to do a search and go, “Wait a minute … something doesn’t smell right here …”

If the Internet has proven anything, it is that people will not hesitate to complain about the smallest irritation.  Do you really think if black screens had been happening the entire Internet would have been silent about it?  Of course it wouldn’t have been.

So, yes, for once I am going to pat myself on the back for calling this into question from the start, and I echo Mr. Bott’s questioning of the tech blogosphere at large.

At the same time, I join with Mr. Bott for calling for Prevx to be laughed out of the security field.  Honestly, I’d go even further and wonder when the lawsuits will start.  Was this a marketing gimmick?  If so, good job, you’re going to get more press coverage than you know what to do with … and none of it is going to be good.

Ever wished your roof would change color through out the day and seasons? Well, that day may not be too far off.

There has been a lot of studies about how black roof tiles are great for the winter as they help retain the heat, but in the summer, well, they retain the heat. There has been some talk from the government of requiring homes to have white roofs to help with energy consumption and climate change, but what if you could have the best of both worlds all year long without changing your roof each season?

The Inquisitr points out an experiment at MIT that has created Thermally-Activated tiles that react to temperature.  The colder it gets, the blacker they become.  Things starting to heat up?  The tiles will turn to white and help cool the house done be reflecting away the heat.  Named Thermeleon by the students, they say that the white coloring will reflect 80 percent of the sunlight that hits it, while the black coloring only reflects 30 percent.  Reportedly this would result in a 20 percent reduction in cooling costs in the summer.

There is no word on marketing or pricing these new roofing tiles, but it seems like the perfect solution to us for a number of problems in the house building market.